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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24676777">Bees are Few</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihilistic_Janitor/pseuds/Nihilistic_Janitor'>Nihilistic_Janitor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:35:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24676777</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihilistic_Janitor/pseuds/Nihilistic_Janitor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Luna Lovegood, sometime after the events of canon, wanders into a forest, goes swimming, becomes the Lady of the Lake, and very nearly catches a Westphalian Stiff-furred Rookschild. The last thing is the one that she is most excited about.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bees are Few</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassGirlCeci/gifts">GlassGirlCeci</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this a while back as a Christmas present for the lovely GlassGirlCeci. I have loose ideas for how it would turn into a full story, but for now this is what exists.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It had been a few days since Luna had last seen another person, and she felt it was quite a nice change of pace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wilderness was just easier to understand. Twigs and logs became fire and warmth. Berries and roots became food. Shadows flitting between the trees became traces of the creatures she was chasing after. Everything turned from one thing to another in a way that made perfect sense.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After having spent much of her life trying to understand the process by which her fellow students changed into witches and wizards and not quite seeing it, the wilderness was exactly what she needed. There was only so much thinking she could do on one topic, after all, and she’d spent seven years surrounded by it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What made the sorts of good people who laughed with their friends and smiled all the time become students with an odd and curious dislike for Luna’s undergarments, to the point where they would attempt to dispose of them in a bathroom as far away from Ravenclaw tower as possible? What made them become students who felt Luna would appreciate her textbooks more if their taste was improved by orange sauce? What made them become the sorts of people who found her so endlessly, flatteringly fascinating that she could scarce step into the halls without being surrounded by embarrassed whispers?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna had no answers during any of her years at school, and she still had no answers now as she chased animal-shadows through a secluded grove. It was a suspicion of hers that she might never understand exactly how people worked, but then, in some ways, she didn’t need to. Harry understood exactly how people worked, after all, and he was more than happy to give Luna a hand whenever she needed it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A branch snapped, somewhere off to one side, and Luna’s thoughts zeroed right in on it. Mysterious sounds often became discoveries, after all! She crept across the forest floor, carefully avoiding the leaves and loudnesses littering it. She was sure she caught a flash of fur that was almost exactly the color gold would be if it were alloyed with pumpernickel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A Westphalian Stiff-furred Rookschild! Not undiscovered, certainly, but her father always told her that Rookschilds were magnets for the rarer breeds of Plimpies. Progress! Her mood buoyed drastically, Luna tore off after the rapidly disappearing glittering thread-tails.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It managed to lose her, in the end, which was disappointing to Luna but not surprising. She didn't know this stretch of the woods terribly well at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a very unusual stretch of woods, on closer inspection. The air was hazy in a pleasant, shimmery sense, like it felt when she wore her spectrespecs or when Ginny gave her hugs. The trees seemed much friendlier than regular trees, as well. They seemed to wave hello to her instead of simply waving aimlessly in the breeze like most trees did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna wandered further in. Despite the remoteness of the woods, she was pleasantly surprised to find other people wandering and having a nice time too. A man with goat legs gave her a pleasant hello, a pair of happy women melted out of the trunk of one tree and into the trunk of the next, a group of blue-skinned children chased after a cloud of snowflakes in the midst of the summer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a clearing, too, in which a very large man wearing the pelt of a very large bear sat on a very large tree that had grown into the shape of a very large throne. He was watching everything that went on around him with a flat, bored face, but Luna could see the swarm of Nargles buzzing about him clear as day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t seem to notice her, but that was alright. Typically, the larger people were than her, the less they noticed her. She’d noticed it in Hogwarts, the way the towering adults never quite seemed to see her clearly, and with a man as big as this, she supposed she may as well be invisible. She could help anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was quick work for Luna to scurry up the tree behind him, making her way up and up and up the rough, twisted bark. She brushed lightly past leaves and sent squirrels chittering away from her, until she was finally above the man’s head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She slipped her little anti-Nargle necklace with its butterbeer cork loose, and, seeing as the man had a much larger head than she did, unclasped it and used a piece of twine to make it much, much larger. Then, she quietly did a charm on herself, stepped lightly off the branch, and drifted down while slipping the necklace over the man’s head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All the other people in the forest had stopped what they were doing by the time her toes touched the ground. People with antlers and fur and teeth and glowy eyes and too-pretty faces all perfectly still. There wasn’t even a breeze, even the trees stood perfectly still as everyone watched her and the man in the bear skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man seemed to see her for the first time. His eyes were silver all the way through, like a Wrackspurt larva, and they stared in the same odd, piercing way that the old headmaster or Professor Snape used to stare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Slowly and deliberately, the man tilted his head to look at the Butterbeer cork resting against his chest, then up at Luna, and then back at the Butterbeer cork. Luna smiled. It tended to take a moment to work, but it always did. Those Nargles wouldn’t know what hit them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure enough, the man gave a ringing gong of a laugh and the Nargles fled into the trees. The tension in the people around them seemed to drain as the Nargles fled. One of the other people began to titter in a high, flutey sort of way. Then a trio of women who giggled like violins. In a moment there was a whole orchestra chuckling and chortling and guffawing around Luna.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She kept smiling. This was probably the best her necklace had ever worked. She’d be surprised if there were any Nargles left inside a kilometer of the clearing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the joy had quieted, the man leaned forward and spoke directly to Luna. “It has been a long time since a mortal has found their way to our court, and longer still since one fit in so seamlessly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That surprised Luna. It was the sort of thing nobody ever said to her, really. Even Ginny, her best friend, never really said anything of that sort. Not that she would have had much of a chance to say it recently, what with her position playing professional Quidditch keeping her busy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man continued. “I think you deserve a boon, in return for what you’ve given me.” He toyed with the cork for a moment before he continued. “You deserve to be one of us in truth, not just in spirit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna continued to smile. This sounded rather similar to the DA pitch she was given, and she’d made her real friends through that. Those friends might have been busy now, but they were still her friends. If this was like the DA, then she would have even more friends when she returned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man nodded to a particular woman with hair that drifted like it was underwater and webbing between her fingers and pointy teeth. The woman came up to Luna and took her hand, saying, “Come with me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna did, asking as she went along, “Will there be Moon Frogs there? They’re so pretty to look at.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman giggled — one of the violin women! — and said, “Maybe if you look long enough, you’ll find them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna nodded. “I will.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman led her to a beautiful, clear lake, placid and picturesque under a clear blue sky. The sort of place Gulping Plimpies tended to accumulate. There were little waving lavender plants growing at the bottom of the lake, waving happily in the water. Swimming between all of them were little fish that glittered like Hermione said stars really did; some of them were glowing in bright reds or cool blues or warm yellows, and a few of the small ones were even a bright white.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman took a dainty step into the shallows and scooped up a handful of the water, presenting it to Luna. “Take a drink. Then maybe go for a swim! Whatever you want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna drank. She was a little thirsty after chasing the Rookschild. The lake water quenched her thirst wonderfully. It tasted like spotting a new creature for the very first time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on, let’s go!” the woman said, diving into the water, and Luna thought it sounded like a wonderful idea, so she dove in too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She lost track of the woman almost immediately, but it didn’t matter. The fish were beautiful and she didn’t know the names of a single one she saw. The water was pure and clear and she never felt like she needed to come up for air, which meant it was the best water she’d ever swam in. The plants were soft and silky smooth and felt wonderful to run her hands through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then she saw it. That pearlescent sheen, just the same as Moon Frog eggs, resting on the very bottom of the lake. Excitement shot through her, and she shot through the water. Real Moon Frog eggs!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except it wasn’t Moon Frog eggs at all. Lying in a bed of the purple plants was a shining sword. It was absolutely perfect, none the worse for wear for having been lying at the bottom of a lake for who knew how long. It was wonderfully light in Luna’s hands, too, and she happily swung it around a few times, careful to not nick the plants. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t know how to use swords, sure, but it was neat, and Luna felt the urge to show it to someone, so she took it and swam up towards the surface. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman wasn’t there when she did, which was disappointing. Stranger yet was the fact that she had surfaced in a very different lake. Gone was the crystal clear water, instead the water she was neck-deep in still was distinctly unclear. Instead of the midst of a forest, this lake appeared to be nestled in a bundle of hills. It was the wrong size, besides. And there were clouds in the sky, where there had been none before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was also a young man, standing on the shore, looking rather surprised by her appearance. Luna, happy to have someone to show the sword to, called out, “Hi!” and made her way towards him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, hello. I am Merlin. And you are?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna thought this was brilliant of the man. She knew this game! She’d played it when she was very young, and knew her part by heart. Much, much easier than the usual greetings people gave her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Morgana, at your service.” Luna grinned wider when she realized just </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span> perfect the whole game was. She had the perfect prop! “And this is Excalibur, the legendary sword.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The young man’s eyes widened. “Excalibur?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Excalibur,” Luna said. “The legendary sword of the true King of Britain. Here you go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The young man looked entirely confounded by her presenting it to him. “I think you’re mistaken, my lady. I’m an enchanter, not a king.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh! Sorry, I think I said my line wrong.” Luna thought for a moment to try and put the words together right. “You’re the one who’s going to give it to the king. I’m just giving it to you so you can do that. Though if you want to be king, I’ll play along with that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The young man cleared his throat, looking warily at the sword. “Ah, I think I’d rather not be king, thank you. Besides, I haven’t the foggiest idea how to use a sword.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luna shrugged. “That’s how the game goes. Here’s the sword. I hope you find a good Arthur!” She pressed it into his hands, and then turned away from him. He would show off the sword plenty, and he’d definitely find someone willing to play Arthur for him. As for Luna, she wasn’t really hungry, and she wasn’t really thirsty, and she wasn’t really tired, but she was most definitely curious as to where she was. More importantly, she was curious as to what kinds of creatures lived here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind her, Merlin watched, dumbfounded, as the enchantress (what else could a woman like her be?) Morgana skipped off into the hills.</span>
</p>
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